Too Much??

This is my new jewelry line - what do you think?

I have always gravitated toward big, chunky, colorful jewelry, and so I just decided to go for it.

Boldly.

This shot shows my big bold chunky necklaces, and matching earrings, or armpit-rings --whatever - they have heavy hooks so they will easily hook to the armhole of your sleeveless top or tank.

Layer them, for a more dramatic statement!

OK, actually, these are the beaded suncatchers from the windows of my bead shop - I had to take them down because I am getting the windows tinted this week, and they were in the way. They'll go back up when the work is done, even though if the guy does the job correctly, there shouldn't be much sun to catch!

It is just unbelievably hot lately - and the sun coming through the glass along the front of the store is just beating me down. The A/C can't even begin to keep up with it!

So I realize there will be a tradeoff - it will be cooler in the shop, but also a little darker. Folks may have to take the beads outside to really match those difficult colors, but that's OK.

How NOT to make Bead Soup

Bead Soup - it's a great thing - there's a lot of fun things you can do with bead soup.

You know what bead soup is, right? - It's all those leftover beads, different sizes, shapes, colors; leftover from previous projects, waiting to make themselves useful in some way.

Beadweavers, especially, have a unique type of bead soup, because it tends to be chock full of those teeny-tiny little beads - you know, the 11s, the 15's, the delicas, the Charlottes.

And people manage their bead soup in different ways - some just dump it all into a big tub, or bag, and use it randomly.

I, with my advanced OCD (that's AOCD, to you lay folk), have to organize my bead soup - both by color, and by size.

So I had (HAD) about 10 little tubs, each separated compulsively by color, made up of the beads generally smaller than 4 mm.

And about 10 large tubs, again separated by color, containing all those extra beads over 4-6 mm.

This was working SO well for me, until about 11:45 this morning.


When the shelf, in my BRAND NEW cabinet, where I had carefully,. compulsively stowed these tubs, decided to collapse while I had the cabinet open -

And this is the result.

Thousands, and thousands, and thousands, and thousands of beads, spilled all over my back room.

And quite a few naughty words shrieked when those beads dumped on my feet.

It took about an hour to scoop all these up - we used a dustpan, and just dumped them into a big box, and I'll undoubtedly be bringing that box home with me tomorrow night to sort, because it is driving me insane that they are now comingling.

I WOULD have brought them home tonight, except that tonight I have to do the monthly sales tax report AND price out all the new beads I bought yesterday from the traveling bead vendor.

What a fantastic way to spend Valentine's Day!



This is a nice shot of the gorgeous sun-catcher/ornaments that are displayed on the door to my shop - they are all made by the extremely talented Mike, of GimmeBeads.

Here's a set they have displayed in their Etsy shop.

Nice, nice work -

Happy Valentine's Day - I hope you are having more fun than I am!